Hootsmon - It's Sunday, We'd Better Toe The Party Line

IN THIS morning's Scotland on Sunday Iain Morrison penned what I can only describe as a pool of pish about the new Celtic Cup (the Under-23/A team competition for Irish Provincial and Welsh Regional shawdow squads), and why Edinburgh and Glasgow are not involved.

Iain Morrison - seems loathe to criticise Murrayfield

“Morry” has been a largely uncritical by-stander over the past year of turmoil and disagreement over Stupid-6, a stance he maintains here. Although, to be fair, I think even he realises it is not the answer, but, he cannot bring himself to criticise the Fat Controller and the Murrayfied Minions.

Let's be honest, there are enough young players inside the SRU Performance Department that they could have been involved. You have to ask yourself, why were they not? That is the question Morry ought to have been demanding Murrayfield answer.

For a start, there are 26 of last season's SRU Academy players listed as “full-time” (if we discount Matt Fagerson, who is now capped), that leaves 25. Add to that the 9 members of last season's Scotland Under-20 squad who are listed as Stage II “Academy-supported” players, and you have 34 players. Add the “fringe” Glasgow and Edinburgh professionals who are Under-23, and the younger members of the Scotland 7s squad, who are available now during the Sevens “off-season”, and there are enough players to determine - there could (subject to Irish and Welsh agreement) have been Edinburgh and Glasgow squads involved in the Celtic Cup.

Robbie Nairn, here scoring for Ayr, one Under-23 professional who might have benefitted from playing in the Celtic Cup

But, for some unfathomable reason, the SRU is unwilling to go down that route. When the WRU set-up their Regional Under-23 Academies, the squads which will play in the Celtic Cup, they made it clear: they saw the best way to develop their young players was over a structured season.

They will come-off pre-season, more or less straight into the Celtic Cup, after which, they will return to training blocks – concentrated strength & conditioning work, and skills work before going back to playing games. All this done under the supervision of the regional academy staff.

The SRU approach of having the Academy players and the fringe professionals alternating between s&c and skills work, while fitting-in sessions with the Premiership clubs to which they are aligned, well it all seems, for want of a better phrase – a wee bit amateurish and haphazard.

The SRU player development method has still, however, worked quite well over the past decade. In the last ten years, 285 Players have been selected for the Scotland Under-20 teams for either the Under-20 6Nations, or the Under-20 World Cup. These young players are, by definition, the cream of Scotland's young talent, and they have reached that status by coming up through the Player Pathway system.

The great majority of these young players were developed via the Scottish Rugby Academy, although, some of them, coming through the “Exiles”, now the “Scotland Qualified” programme, have learned their rugby at Engish club rugby academies.

Of these 285 young players, 36 have gone on to be capped, this represents 13% going on to the highest level. A further 12 have gone on to win “lesser” caps: Tomaso Allen switched to Italy and is now a regular in their international side; George Hunter opted to reresent the Bahamas, while the other ten have won either Scotland A or Scotland 7s “caps”.

An additional 33 players (12%) have gone on to secure contracts with either Edinburgh and Glasgow, while a further 26 (9%) have won contracts with English club sides.

So, in total 108 Under-20 internationalists (38% of the total number capped) have “trained-on” to become professional rugby players.

To be fair to the hard-working coaches and players in the Academy system, that 38% figure is only a snap-shot, since the players from the 2016 to 2018 squads are, in truth, still very-much learning their trade. Sure, Matt Fagerson, Adam Hastings and Blair Kinghorn have already won caps, but they are the exceptions. If we look only at those players who are now older than 23, the picture is a bit better, with 48% having at least got as far as to hav earned full professional contracts.

 The Fagerson brothers, both broke through very early-on in their careers

That is actually a very-good percentage of players coming through. I believe it is fair to say, the notion of a career as a professional rugby player is still fairly new. We are not yet at the stage where – as is the case with football - teenaged boys, as early as 12 or 13 have their hearts set on a career in the game. In fact, I would suggest, a good percentage of those players capped at Under-20 level have their career designs set elsewhere.

For them, while playing international age group rugby is enjoyable, they may well be at university and aiming instead for a career in one of the professions. Take that into consideration, and a 48% conversion rate from age group honours into a professional career is a very-good figure.

By the time these young players win their Under-20 caps, they have been through the selection mill. The sifting starts at Under-15 level with the first player pathway games; then it is on through the age groups – Under-16/17/18/19 to the big push with the Under-20s. Al the time, they are being watched and assessed in the Youth and Schools Conferences, so, by the time the Under-20 squad is picked, there can be few young players whose potential is not known to the SRU Performance Department coaches.

Therefore, the chances of anyone suddenly emerging from left field is, to say the least, remote. Indeed, looking through the names of the 285 Under-20 caps in the last decade, I can think of only three players – Fraser Brown, Jamie Bhatti and George Turner, who dropped out of the professional ranks, back to being club players, then fought their way back.

I can accept, therefore, the SRU Performance Department's desire to see a level of rugby at which the players who have come up the Pathway to Under-20 level but are not immediately ready to play their full part in Edinburgh's and Glasgow's season. But, in truth, S6 is unlikely to throw many new names into the mix. And it is certainly not going to be "Domestic" Rugby.